Soulbyte for Friday October 26, 2018

Let your mind be free of worry and constraints. Let your heart rest, knowing that all will be well. Let your body experience what life brings, and yet guide yourself forward in all manners with a combination of discipline and daring, restraint and freedom, care and abandon, for life, in all its vicissitudes, requires both certainty and uncertainty, sharp concentration and the ability to release from constraint when necessary. Life is not a straight path but one that takes many sharp turns, dips and drops, that diverges and shifts without a moment’s notice. And so the human being must be prepared for what it brings, for what it entices with, and for what it curtails with. Knowing all this, embrace life with open arms, for no matter what happens, or has happened to you, you are well prepared for it. For it is your soul’s intent to live the life you are in, but it is also your soul’s intent that you confront and conquer all that your present life entails too. Your soul’s intent is that you evolve and do so with full consciousness, in alignment with where you are, who you are, and what you have been given. It is all your soul’s intent. And it is all your own intent too! Recognize this and half the battle is won!

-From the Soul Sisters, Jan & Jeanne

Soulbyte for Thursday October 25, 2018

Adopt a patient attitude. In Tao all is patient, in alignment with waiting for all that is right to come into balance, for everything to get into synch, within and without. In Tao all is as it should be, without stress or yearning; it is what is, acceptable for the moment because the moment is all that is. What is to come at another time is not important, for it is not in the moment. In Tao each moment is rich, each step is vital, each breath the only breath, each moment all there is to life. In Tao patience finds its natural place among the many other riches of the moment. It just is and it is right, a part of each moment. Adopt patience, breathe patience, and live in the richness of each moment, knowing also that in the next moment everything can change. This too is Tao. Be in Tao, patiently ready for anything.

-From the Soul Sisters, Jan & Jeanne

Chuck’s Place: Find Higher Ground

Keep the light on love…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

As a clinician, I would diagnose the world as currently suffering from Acute Stress Disorder. This diagnosis differs from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder only in time: we are currently encountering the overwhelming stress, and reactions to stress, well-known in PTSD, most acutely in our daily encounters with oncoming world events.

On a psychological level, acute stress is met by the activation of the survival instinct, which manifests in reactions of fight, flight, or freeze. These reactions are archaic responses, universally programmed in all humans, that generally override the thinking, reflective, choice centered part of our brains, the neocortex, which generally goes dormant when we feel threatened. Thus, our behaviors become instinctively, versus consciously, directed reactions to stressors.

We see the fight reaction in the political and social media battles throughout the world. We see the flight reaction in the mass migratory patterns of human populations fleeing the earthly disasters and dangerous political conditions of their familial homelands. We see the freeze reaction in withdrawal into depression, as well as into the numbness of addiction.

Although instinctive reactions are nature’s time-honored survival strategies, they are not always the most efficient or appropriate responses to a crisis, nor do they really penetrate the true depth of an issue. Deeper levels of consideration require the ability to reflect objectively, which cannot happen when the neocortex is offline. Thus, the ability to restore the thinking function to normal capacity is critical. But how?

Breathe. Mindful breathing has the physiological effect of blocking stress producing hormones and inducing a relaxation response to the body. From there, thinking comes back online and can provide a broader perspective. The greatest challenge to breathing when stressfully activated is to separate from the actions dictated by the fight, flight, freeze instinctual program. Sometimes a vigorous walk, run, or private scream is a helpful release before breathing. When battling another person, it is generally best to separate for awhile, rather than try to force a resolution. Not to do so often results in a continued and escalated battle.

Although the neocortex is the biological thinking center of the brain, the mind and consciousness itself are actually part of the soul or energy body. This is most evident in the mind’s ability to act in opposition to its biological programming. When we choose to breathe when deeply stressed, we are acting in opposition to our biological programming. We rise above our animal nature to access spirit consciousness and choice.

The heart center in human beings has its energy body connection in its interconnected relationship to all of life. Thus, from the heart center we are able to feel love, which enables empathy, care, and support beyond one’s instinctive survival drive, which cannot extend beyond the narcissistic province of me and mine. This spirit center elevates the human being from the dominance of the survival drive at its animal level, which we witness pervasively throughout the world at this time.

As Mother Earth continues her drastic reformation of the globe, a major healing crisis, we are likely to see all animal species, particularly the human, responding through instinctual survival programs. For humans, these instinctual survival programs will increasingly pit human against human. These instinctual survival programs lack empathy, love, and a greater understanding of the changes we are all being confronted with.

In spite of the dire state of world affairs, it is possible to consciously rise above these instinctual survival programs and maintain and increase greater love and understanding. The ability to be empathic truly does lie at the heart of the evolved human being. With intent we can find our way to higher ground.

Seek sanctuary in heart-centered breathing to counter pure survival behaviors that lack soul. Find the higher ground of love and understanding, even as our species grapples with major change. As individual cells of this great body of Mother Earth, we can, individually and collectively, introduce soulful healing energy into our planet’s current major healing crisis.

From the breathing heart,

Chuck

Soulbyte for Wednesday October 24, 2018

The power to heal lies within. The power to heal the body, the mind, the emotions, the spirit, or even the world, lies within reach, within the intent to direct energy in a specific direction. Energy is power. Use it wisely, for it can be misdirected as well, causing illness, fear, pain, destruction. It all depends on how you decide to use your energy and your intent. You can heal or you can destroy, yourself or others. Now that’s power! And it’s all within the self. Why not use your power as healing energy, simply because you can? Goodness, kindness, beauty, love, and compassion are powers that lie within the self as well. Why not use all of them simply because you can? The choice is pretty simple, and it’s powerful.

-From the Soul Sisters, Jan & Jeanne

Soulbyte for Tuesday October 23, 2018

Carry love always in your heart, kindness on your tongue, gentleness in your eyes. Remain committed to a higher self, a higher purpose, and a higher worldview no matter what transpires to make you think any higher intent is impossible. It is not. You have all the tools within you to uphold a higher self and higher goals for all. Do so because it is the right thing to do. Acknowledge the dark but counter it with light. Keep the negative in balance with the positive. And keep anger and hatred in check with gratitude and love. Carry on in this manner and expect always the best.

-From the Soul Sisters, Jan & Jeanne